Marcabeli, Paragliding Festival and Rodeo

South of Cuenca, we headed to Loja, a small city without much interest for the average tourist other than nice markets and an overall feeling of tranquility. We walked around the market enjoying the colorfull fruit stalls and the regional food and drink specialities, including a weird aloe vera based drink that is supposed to cure all illnesses.

Fresh coffee

In Loja we had the contact of a paragliding pilot, Ramiro. We met him for a chat and some drinks. Straight away he insisted to offer us everything, caring to offer us the best experience of his country. Regarding the paragliding options in Loja, Ramiro told us that it wasn't quite the season but that him and other folks from the club were going to a "paragliding festival" for the week end, to which he invited us. He also offered us to stay at his place on the Friday night. Really we felt very lucky to have met such a kind guy!
After our stay at Ramiro's we headed to Marcabeli, a town at about 3hours drive west from Loja which enjoy a warmer climate and better paragliding conditions altogether.

A little bit of music to listen to while reading:

Loja paragliding team

Arriving in Marcabeli we joined the local pilot and organiser of the "paragliding festival", Annibal a charismatic pilot speaking with a loud voice and a lot of enthusisasm. What we didn't know was that Annibal's plan was to combine the openning of a new paragliding site, that he developped, with a local livestock festival. His idea was to get the pilots to land in the middle of the festival to provide some show to this feria. The landing field configuration was such (surrounded by electric cables) that the show has been more than complete with some pilot landing in the cables, but luckily more thrills than damage.

Annibal explaining the flight plan

The setting was a lot of fun! Loads of Ecuadorian cow boys and some impressive cattle around.

We got a little flight with some good thermal. The only issue was the lack of good landing options and the fact that, I think, the take off was a little bit lee side. Anyway I managed to get some good altitude and flew over the fair to do some acro before landing without problem in the middle of the festival. Before I had the chance to take off my equipment, I was in for a 20min photo session.

View from take off

Marcabeli

Photo session

Then it was time to enjoy the festival. It was so much fun to hear the presenter shouting in his mic all the time "Please welcome the professsionnnnalllls paragliding pilot from France". We got offered a lot of  beers and aguardiente and danced on the local live artists.

 

Geo coming to land

Cumbia girls from Loja

The team

The next day the weather wasn't good for flying, so we enjoyed some more of the feria. With the highlight of the day: the rodeo. It reminded me so much of the town festivals in the south of France a mix between local music, cattle farming, motorbikes, and obviously a lot of drinking.

We had an amazing week end with some interesting flying and a dive into some of the Ecuadorian popular culture. A massive thanks to Ramiro and all the paragliding crew that hosted us like kings!!!